The rise and fall of “individualism” before and after the May Fourth Movement

Abstract

“Individualism” was one of the most important philosophical trends in the May Fourth era, heavily influencing youths seeking personal liberation and independence. However, not long after the May Fourth Movement, positive associations with individualism gradually receded. Compared with devotion to “nation” or “society,” the quest for individual independence was repeatedly criticized as almost synonymous with “selfish.” There were two reasons for this: first was opposition stemming from a traditional Chinese respect for collectivism; second was that individualism had become the theoretical basis for private capitalist production following the First World War and its founding values were coming under increased scrutiny. As the Second World War unfolded, the fight for survival benefitted the promotion of collectivist values and the idea of social organisms. Individualism declined and eventually became supplanted by a heavily politicized form of collectivism.     

A vernacular way of “safeguarding” intangible heritage: the fall and rise of rituals in Gouliang Miao village

This paper documents a vernacular method of interpreting and safeguarding intangible heritage in an ethnic Miao village in China. Tracing the conflicting discourses of ritual in different stages of the past and the present, it shows how ritual practices were transformed by imperial Qing officials in the mid-nineteenth century, demonised and denounced as feudal superstition during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), exploited as cultural resources for ethnic tourism since the early twentieth century and involved in the evaluation system of intangible cultural heritage in the twenty-first century. Based on ethnographic materials collected in 2008 and 2009, this paper argues that it is the inherited vernacular narratives and ritual performances that are negotiating with the state’s constant effort of shaping the ritual through various discourses, constructing the meaning of inheritance and safeguarding the intangible heritage within the community.     

Claims to protection: the rise and fall of feminist abolitionism in the League of Nations' Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children, 1919–1936

This article examines the League of Nations Advisory Committee on the Trafficking of Women and Children (CTW) to assess the impact of international feminists on the interwar anti-sex trafficking movement. It argues that women who were firmly embedded in the transnational and international women's rights movement built a coalition on the CTW to ensure the prominence of the feminist abolitionist position of sex trafficking in the 1920s. This position was defined by calls for equal standards of morality between the sexes, resistance to laws that treated prostitutes as a group and infringed on their human rights, and unwavering demands for the abolition of state-regulated prostitution. Changes in the personnel and bureaucratic structure of the CTW and the rising tide of nationalism served to undermine the feminist abolitionists' position in the League in the 1930s.     

The rise and fall of ‘critical’ historiography? Some reflections on the historiographical agenda of the left in Britain,France and Germany at the end of the twentieth century

This article compares the rise and fall of ‘critical’, that is to say oppositional and emancipatory, historiography in Britain, France and Germany since 1945. It argues that the prolonged crisis of the old ‘critical’ paradigm from the late 1970s onwards had much to do with political disillusionment and methodological weaknesses. It concludes by suggesting that any new ‘critical’ historiography will have to explore the opportunities inherent in the multitude of radical histories which developed in the 1980s and 1990s (most notably history‐from‐below, cultural, feminist and post‐modernist histories), without attempting to homogenise and synthesise these diverse and separate forms of historical writing into some new super‐paradigm, which would only produce new closures and erasures.     

“The Central Kingdom” and “the realm under heaven” coming to mean the same: The process of the formation of territory in ancient China

“The Central Kingdom” is pregnant of political implications as well as of geographical and cultural significance. It was believed that whoever controlled Zhongguo (the Central Kingdom or China) would be the legitimate ruler over Tianxia (the realm under heaven or all under heaven). It was the contention for “the Central Kingdom” among the varieties of dynasties, notably those established by the Han-Chinese and the various ethnic groups in the northern borderland, that lead to the alternation of disintegration and unification of the territory. It was not until the Qing Dynasty that the unified “Central Kingdom” composed of a variety of ethnic groups turned into the ideal “realm under heaven” with “the Central Kingdom” at its core, which naturally put an end to the formation of territory in ancient China.     

Resistances in the “Resilient City”: Rise and fall of a disputed concept in New Orleans and Medellin

Medellin and New Orleans were regularly presented as resilience flagships of the Rockefeller's 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) program. In this article, I will demonstrate how 100RC was embedded or abandoned in both cities' policies. The two case studies provide an opportunity to understand how the 100RC approach to resilience offered – or failed to offer – an appropriate space for the multiple deployments of resilience. 100RC initially promoted an integrative definition of resilience, aiming to address natural as well as social stresses and shocks. I argue that this holistic approach paradoxically contributed to limiting the multiplicity of resilience in both cities. In Medellin, the project came to a halt after political changes. New Orleans eventually developed a more reductionist and technical approach than that initially formulated, focusing on the effectiveness of infrastructures rather than social changes. Considering the importance of contextualizing resilience to local concerns, this analysis will thus demonstrate some of the challenges implied in the institutionalization of a global model of resilience. Moreover, it will also highlight the importance of contextualizing neoliberalism and question the widespread vision of resilient cities as being merely neoliberal.     

Gendarmeries,state reinforcement and territorial control at the ends of world wars: Belgium,France and The Netherlands, 1914–50

Present in many European countries, the institution of the ‘gendarmerie’ is a powerful and regal tool for controlling territories and populations as well as for strengthening the central authority. The twentieth century's two world wars represent decisive moments for understanding the modes of regulation implemented by the gendarmeries. The ambition of this article is to question the impact of the two world wars on the modes of control over territories and persons for the Belgian and French gendarmeries and the Dutch Koninklijke Marechaussee. In this way, the author analyses the relationships between the State and the police institutions. The article thus sheds light on evolutions in ‘gendarmic systems’ from a regional, national and transnational perspective during the first half of a twentieth century marked by two major crises.     

Globalization and the closing of the universe of discourse: the contemporary relevance of Marcuse's “Marxism”1

This paper assumes that there is something in the logic of the capitalist mode of production such that, in the words of Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto, it “must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere,” giving a “cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country.” It assumes, that is, that there is an inherent tendency in capitalism to seek to globalize. Further, it is argued that one can plausibly claim that the capitalist mode of production has succeeded, or is succeeding, in globalizing against the countervailing forces of the managing state and organized labor. It is argued that this development represents, to use Marcuse's words, something like a “closing of the universe of discourse” or a “paralysis of criticism” and the emergence of a “society without opposition,” but in a context, in crucial respects, fundamentally different from that analysed by Marcuse in the 1960s.     

“Because they have cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts”—or: “We and the rest of the world” The authors who “wrote” The Old Testament

RÉSUMÉ

Comparer l’histoire construite de l’Israël biblique à celle des Aztéques, telle que Christian Duverger l’a analysée, premet de dégager un certain nombre de parallèles. En insistant sur leur migration, ces derniers ont élaboré un grand récit initiatique qui avait pour but de légitimer leur installation à Mexico et de justifier leur volonté hégémonique. Avec quelques différences d’importance, le récit biblique de l’exode d’Égypte puis de la conquête de Canaan comporte des aspects idéologiques similaires. Parailleurs, si les Aztèques se voyaient comme étant les héritiers des Toltèques, le royaume de Jude usurpa le prestige du royaume historique d’Israël entraînant une grande confusion autour de ce nom.     

The case for extending measures of democracy in the world “Beneath”, “Above”, and “Outside” the national level

This article applies spatial theory, or the view that phenomena are distributed in space, to democracy. This analysis demonstrates that plural (two or more) democratic practices are evident in three spatial categories: (1) vertical stratification (i.e. at different levels of governance), (2) horizontal separation (i.e. among different agents operating at each level of governance), and (3) social association (i.e. in workplaces, families, schools). This finding, that plural democratic practices are demonstrated by agents operating at multiple levels of governance and in various non- or quasi-governmental associations prompts us to argue that measures of democracy in the world should be extended to spaces “beneath”, “above”, and “outside” the national level – presently the dominant locus for regular batteries that test the quality and extent of democratic practices globally. However, global data on the quality and extent of democracy at these other levels needs to be built before such an extension can happen.     

‘The races and conditions of men’: women in nineteenth-century geography school texts in the United States

Geography schoolbooks published in the United States were important opinion makers in the nineteenth century, often joining the Bible as the main source of information about the world outside North America. The texts examined here are noteworthy for their static and pejorative treatment of non-American cultures and may be seen as playing a key role in forming isolationist and chauvinist American public opinion. They also played a role in reinforcing ideas about the proper niche for women in American society, even though it may seem at first that these books could not have had much influence on ideas about American women because they barely mentioned women, almost always relegating them to illustrations and captions. The few women depicted were usually characterized as ‘poor souls’ in distant lands worthy of pity. We discuss the national political context in which these writers (many of whom were women) were producing geography school texts, the social roles they were fulfilling by reinforcing such limited images of ‘foreign’ women, and the sources they may have used in their research. Furthermore, we demonstrate that much more could have been drawn ethnographically from the illustrations of women. The images of women in these geography schoolbooks reinforced the marginalization of women, particularly non-white and non-western women.     

Self-Orientalization and Dislocation: The Uses and Abuses of the “Aryan” Discourse in Iran

The claim to belong to the “Aryan race,” believed to be rooted in the ancient self-designation ariya, is a fundamental pillar of the Iranian nationalist discourse. This paper aims to show that in fact it is a twentieth-century import from Europe, where after being instrumentalized for colonial endeavors and Nazi atrocities, it has become almost completely discredited. Yet Iranians continue to nonchalantly refer to themselves as Aryans and the myth of the “land of Aryans” persists, even in academic circles. It will be argued that the reason for this resilience is the specific role Aryanism plays in Iranian identity politics, and the strategies designed to manage the trauma of the encounter with Europe.